"Cupid's Head"

From his first single as the Field, Axel Willner's aesthetic was fully formed: microcut vocal samples, lightly pulsing, four-on-the-floor beats, ambient washes, perpetual momentum. Seven years later, not much has changed on the title track from his fourth LP, Cupid's Head. But with Willner, the most imperceptible shifts metastisize into huge alterations; he's become ambient's foremost crossover act by figuring out the right couple of moves that gives each of his records its own distinct personality. Here, there's considerably more shade and distortion, not to mention a surprising boom-bap drum break that brings the Field into the realm of syrup-slowed hip-hop. Back in 2007, he introduced From Here We Go Sublime with "Over the Ice"; on "Cupid's Head", Willner's going through the smoke.